Distribution of bat species in Western Asia: Occurrence records from the Western Asia Bat Research Network (WAB-Net) project

Abstract Background Western Asia represents a mixing pot of diverse bat species with distributions spanning across other geographic regions. Yet, relative to other regions, there is a significant gap in coordinated bat research in Western Asia, thereby resulting in a relatively limited number of curated occurrence records. New information The Western Asia Bat Research Network (WAB-Net) project was created to strengthen research capacity and knowledge of the diversity and distribution of bat species in a little-studied region, as well as to collect data to characterise the diversity and prevalence of coronaviruses in diverse bat species. Over a four-year period (2018–2022), we documented 4,278 individual records for 41 bat species using a cross-sectional survey approach at 50 sites in seven Western Asian countries, specifically Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Jordan, Oman, Pakistan and Turkiye. At each site, we captured, on average, 90 individual bats (range: 9-131) over multiple consecutive nights and used standardised methods to collect demographic and morphological data from captured individuals. We additionally completed a systematic evaluation of environmental characterisation and human-bat interactions at all 50 sites. Here, we report individual occurrence records and site conditions from this multi-country, multi-year sampling effort.


Introduction
Western Asia serves as a convergence point for bat species originating from diverse geographic regions, including North Africa, South Asia and Europe, with the majority of these species distributed in more than one region.However, research on bat species in Western Asia is limited in comparison to other geographic regions (Phelps et al. 2019) and primarily concentrated on documenting bat diversity and distribution in a single country (Shehab et al. 2007, Benda et al. 2011, Benda and Uhrin 2019, Abdulrahman et al. 2021) or across neighbouring countries, such as the Arabian Peninsula (Harrison and Bates 1991).
Systematic bat survey data are invaluable to support both conservation and zoonotic disease research efforts (Phelps et al. 2019).In Western Asia, much of the bat locality data are based on historical surveys or museum collections, which were often collected opportunistically and within a more limited geographic scope.The collection of occurrence data from ongoing field surveys using standardised methods is critical to providing a more comprehensive picture of bat species distribution, abundance and diversity.This is especially true today given active and growing threats to bats in most parts of the world (Frick et al. 2020), including factors like climate change that are leading to range shifts and contractions for many species (Festa et al. 2022).At the same time, bats are important reservoir hosts for zoonotic diseases, including several emerging human and livestock viruses.Field-collected occurrence data can improve our understanding of bat-microbial (e.g.viruses, bacteria, protozoa) dynamics and provide information for surveillance efforts and disease risk mitigation (Olival et al. 2017, Sánchez et al. 2022).

General description
Purpose: The Western Asia Bat Research Network (WAB-Net) project was created to strengthen research capacity and knowledge of the diversity and distribution of bat species in a little-studied region, as well as to collect data to characterise bat-associated coronaviruses (Phelps et al. 2019).More details on the WAB-Net project are available at www.wabnet.org.
Additional information: Over a four-year period (2018-2022), we conducted standardised, cross-sectional sampling of bat populations at 50 sites in seven Western Asian countries, specifically Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Jordan, Oman, Pakistan and Turkiye.

Sampling methods
Sampling description: Bats were captured primarily using harp traps and mist nets set in flyways or at the entrance to caves or anthropogenic structures in which bats were roosting.On rare occasions, bats were extracted from crevices with hand-held hoop nets.
Trapping began approximately 30 minutes prior to sunset, with trapping duration dependent on capture rate (i.e. to prevent capture of more individuals than can be safely processed in a single night), but on average, nightly trapping duration was 4.8 hours.Captured bats were placed individually in a porous cloth bag and hung in a quiet, dry location away from predators.Standard morphological measurements (i.e.forearm length (mm) and body mass (g)) and demographic information (i.e.sex, age class and reproductive status) of each captured bat were recorded.Expert opinion was relied upon for species identification in the field and, when needed, additional morphological measurements, such as ear length (mm), tail length (mm), hind foot length (mm) and head and body length (mm) along with acoustic recordings, were used to aid in identification.Species identification was later confirmed for a subset of individuals of each species per site from each country via barcoding the cytochrome b gene using previously published methods (Townsen et al. 2008).Bats were immediately released at the original site of capture.
Field team members adhered to biosafety protocols established by the PREDICT Consortium (PREDICT Consortium 2020), including the use of personal protective equipment (i.e.field-dedicated clothing and close-toed shoes that could be disinfected, an N95 respirator mask, double-layer nitrile gloves and eye protection) during the capture, handling and sampling of bats.All methods were approved by the Tufts University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (protocols #G2018-01 and #G2020-127) and the USAMRDC Animal Care and Use Review Office (protocol # CT-2017-12).
Locality information and sampling dates for each site are presented in Table 1, with more detailed information about site conditions presented in Suppl.material 3.  Table 1.
Locality information and sampling dates for sites included in this study.The map code corresponds to sites in Fig. 1.See Suppl.material 3 for more detailed information about each site.coordinateUncertaintyInMetres The horizontal distance (in metres) from the given dwc:decimalLatitude and dwc:decimalLongitude describing the smallest circle containing the whole of the dcterms:Location.Leave the value empty if the uncertainty is unknown, cannot be estimated or is not applicable (because there are no coordinates).Zero is not a valid value for this term.
dataGeneralisations Actions taken to make the shared data less specific or complete than in its original form.Suggests that alternative data of higher quality may be available on request.
georeferencedDate The date on which the dcterms:Location was georeferenced.
higherClassification A list (concatenated and separated) of taxon names terminating at the rank immediately superior to the referenced dwc:Taxon.kingdom The full scientific name of the kingdom in which the dwc:Taxon is classified.phylum The full scientific name of the phylum or division in which the dwc:Taxon is classified.class The full scientific name of the class in which the dwc:Taxon is classified.order The full scientific name of the order in which the dwc:Taxon is classified.family The full scientific name of the family in which the dwc:Taxon is classified.genus The full scientific name of the genus in which the dwc:Taxon is classified.specificEpithet The name of the first or species epithet of the dwc:scientificName.taxonRank The taxonomic rank of the most specific name in the dwc:scientificName.lifeStage The age class or life stage of the dwc:Organism(s) at the time the dwc:Occurrence was recorded.sex The sex of the biological individual(s) represented in the dwc:Occurrence.reproductiveCondition Categorisation of individuals for eusocial species (including some mammals and arthropods).identifiedBy A list (concatenated and separated) of names of people, groups or organisations who assigned the dwc:Taxon to the subject.dateIdentified The date on which the subject was determined as representing the dwc:Taxon.decimalLatitude The geographic latitude (in decimal degrees, using the spatial reference system given in dwc:geodeticDatum) of the geographic centre of a dcterms:Location.Positive values are north of the Equator, negative values are south of it.Legal values lie between -90 and 90, inclusive.decimalLongitude The geographic longitude (in decimal degrees, using the spatial reference system given in dwc:geodeticDatum) of the geographic centre of a dcterms:Location.Positive values are east of the Greenwich Meridian, negative values are west of it.Legal values lie between -180 and 180, inclusive.geodeticDatum The ellipsoid, geodetic datum or spatial reference system (SRS), upon which the geographic coordinates given in dwc:decimalLatitude and dwc:decimalLongitude are based.
georeferenceSourcesA list (concatenated and separated) of maps, gazetteers or other resources used to georeference the dcterms:Location, described specifically enough to allow anyone in the future to use the same resources.georeferenceVerificationStatus A categorical description of the extent to which the georeference has been verified to represent the best possible spatial description for the dcterms:Location of the dwc:Occurrence.higherGeography A list (concatenated and separated) of geographic names less specific than the information captured in the dwc:locality term.continent The name of the continent in which the dcterms:Location occurs.country The name of the country or major administrative unit in which the dcterms:Location occurs.countryCode The standard code for the country in which the dcterms:Location occurs.stateProvince The name of the next smaller administrative region than country (state, province, canton, department, region etc.) in which the dcterms:Location occurs.county The full, unabbreviated name of the next smaller administrative region than stateProvince (county, shire, department etc.) in which the dcterms:Location occurs.municipality The full, unabbreviated name of the next smaller administrative region than county (city, municipality etc.) in which the dcterms:Location occurs.Do not use this term for a nearby named place that does not contain the actual dcterms:Location.locality The specific description of the place.language A language of the resource.licence A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.institutionID An identifier for the institution having custody of the object(s) or information referred to in the record.institutionCode The name (or acronym) in use by the institution having custody of the object(s) or information referred to in the record.collectionCode The name, acronym, coden or initialism identifying the collection or dataset from which the record was derived.catalogNumber An identifier (preferably unique) for the record within the dataset or collection.recordedBy A list (concatenated and separated) of names of people, groups or organiations responsible for recording the original dwc:Occurrence.The primary collector or observer, especially one who applies a personal identifier (dwc:recordNumber), should be listed first.preparations A list (concatenated and separated) of preparations and preservation methods for a dwc:MaterialEntity.otherCatalogNumbers A list (concatenated and separated) of previous or alternative fully qualified catalogue numbers or other human-used identifiers for the same dwc:Occurrence, whether in the current or any other dataset or collection.previousIdentifications A list (concatenated and separated) of previous assignments of names to the dwc:Organism.associatedSequences A list (concatenated and separated) of identifiers (publication, global unique identifier, URI) of genetic sequence information associated with the dwc:MaterialEntity.

Map code Country Site Latitude
(Ballard and Whitlock 2003)l bats of 41 species belonging to nine families, which represents 43.2% of the 95 bat species distributed across the seven focal countries and 35.6% of the 115 bat species documented in Western Asia(Upham et al. 2024).See Suppl.material 1 for detailed information about individual demographic and morphological traits and Suppl.material 2 for final species determination, based on multiple lines of evidence, including DNA barcode results with associated NCBI GenBank accession numbers.It is important to emphasise that, while the cytochrome b gene is extensively used to confirm species identifications, it captures only the maternal elements of the genome(Ballard and Whitlock 2003).Therefore, conclusions drawn solely from short fragments of the mitochondrial DNA may not be reliable enough to correctly differentiate closely related species(Ruedi et al. 2023).Such is the case for two sibling bat species, Myotis blythii and M. myotis( Furman et al. 2012), which are thought to undergo cryptic hybridisation in geographic areas of sympatry in Western Asia (i.e.Below, scientific names followed by "*" or "**" indicate a conservation status of "Near Threatened" or "Vulnerable", respectively, as designated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN 2024).Distribution of bat species in Western Asia: Occurrence records from the ... Usage of reported data is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Description: Turkiye)(Berthier et al. 2006).Therefore, in addition to DNA barcoding results, which were not informative in some instances, data on morphology, geographic distribution, and/or acoustic recordings was also used to confirm species identifications.Column labelColumn description occurrenceID An identifier for the dwc:Occurrence (as opposed to a particular digital record of the dwc:Occurrence).basisOfRecordThespecificnature of the data record.eventDateThedate-time or interval during which a dwc:Event occurred.For occurrences, this is the date-time when the dwc:Event was recorded.scientificNameThefull scientific name, with authorship and date information if known.When forming part of a dwc:Identification, this should be the name in lowest level taxonomic rank that can be determined.This term should not contain identification qualifications, which should instead be supplied in the dwc:identificationQualifier term.